


The Dying Soldier

by scarletseeker113



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, M/M, Seriously more shippy than I thought it would be, War, World War Three, also more shippy than i was intending, this is really really sad okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-13 04:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 17,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletseeker113/pseuds/scarletseeker113
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t leave me,” he says.<br/>If there were ever a phrase that would make John stay, that would make him defy any orders given to him by his country and run away to South America where he could solve murders in relative peace, these words would be them.</p><p>It's an AU and World War Three has just started, and John is going to reenlist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I should note that 1) these characters are obviously not mine and 2) the whole alliance thing and such is totally made up and 3)I'm not sure how often I'll update because a) I just started a new semester of college and b) I find this AU really sad. You can blame it on my World War Two class.
> 
> Okay, another thing. In this story I essentially use the events of World War II in a modern setting. I want to be clear that I do not think this will happen again, nor do I think that Germany or Japan will ever do these types of things in this time. This is not meant to offend anyone from those countries, as this is a work of fiction. I used the worst things from the war to generate angst. Sometimes I will have Germany do things in this story that they did not do in WWII, Japan was responsible for it- look for it in the notes, I will say it. I just have everything happen in Germany because that is where John is.

The country was in a dismal state. The people were starving, there were no jobs, and too many murders.

Sherlock finds this delightful of course, and John follows behind, with a slightly disapproving look on his face. They enter into a dismal alley that is lit up by flood lights. The Met stands around in a loose circle and Sherlock sweeps into the middle of them, commanding their attention effortlessly. This murder is, apparently too easy.

Sherlock rattles off facts for a minute and then proclaims the killer as the brother, and sweeps off.

John doesn’t follow, drifting to a conversation that two officers are having.

“Germany’s doing it all over again,” the first mutters. His name is Trevor, he’s been on Lestrade’s team about a year now.

“That’s what my grandfather keeps saying,” Violet responds. “But it can’t break out into war again.”

Trevor raises his eyebrows skeptically. “Who knows,” he says, “they could be marching on France right now, and we’d have no choice but to get involved. We’re allies.”

John backs away, his stomach sinking. 

The possibility of war makes him feel nauseous. 

“John,” Sherlock calls, beckoning him from the end of the alleyway.

John follows him into the taxi that he has waiting, and they head off to Angelo’s for a celebratory dinner.

John can’t help but feel like there isn’t much to celebrate.

* * *

England declares war on Spain three days later. While all the attention was focused on Germany, Spain invaded France, pushing the border an killing a total of a thousand civilians.

England prepares for war, and John Watson buries his face in his hands.

“Don’t go,” Sherlock says.

“I have to.”

The silence wraps around them, stifling them and making it hard to breath. Sherlock finds enough breath to speak anyways.

“Why?”

John stares at him. “Because I love my country, Sherlock. Because I love London, because this is wrong and I have to do what I can to make it right.”

Sherlock scoffs, shifting on the couch and flapping his arm dramatically. “Always the soldier,” he says venomously. “Always looking for another fight, always looking for a cause.”

“The cause found me,” John says firmly.

And that’s the end of the discussion until a few days later.

John is sitting on the couch, staring at the telly. The news reporter is wearing black and her hair is done in a bun. She’s not trying to look beautiful or alluring. She’s dressed for the news she’s delivering.

“Germany has started to attack France from the eastern border, making France split it’s troops. Our own government hasn’t made any attack so far, despite our alliance with France. Some are starting to question whether we will get involved at all.”

John snaps the television off, and Sherlock looks up from his chair.

“Don’t leave me,” he says.

If there were ever a phrase that would make John stay, that would make him defy any orders given to him by his country and run away to South America where he could solve murders in relative peace, these words would be them.

Sherlock stares at him, and he looks so lost, like a child. John knows that he’s probably acting for him, playing on his guilt and affection to make him stay, but John knows that at least some of it is _real._

And, oh God, that hurts.

But there are people dying. And he can make a difference, however small.

“I have to go, Sherlock.”

“You can save lives here in London, you don’t have to go to France,” Sherlock says it dismissively, like it means nothing, but John sees the way his flatmate’s eyes follow his every move, eagerly waiting for a response. Hoping that John will stay. 

John shakes his head slowly.

“I’m sorry,” he says and the words carry weight. He’s sorry for so much. Mostly, he’s sorry that Sherlock will never be able to convince him to stay in London, however much they both might want it.

 *   *   *

John walks through the front door of 221B Baker street to find Sherlock moping on the couch. 

“I reenlisted today,” he said. 

Sherlock _humphed_ and buried his face into the back of the sofa.

“I’m going to leave within the week.”

Sherlock doesn’t move, but John can see his shoulders shaking just slightly, before he takes a deep breath and is perfectly still again.

Suddenly Sherlock sits up and faces John. 

“You’re going back to war,” he says flatly.

“Yes,” John responds, slightly bewildered at why Sherlock feels the need to state this again.

“You’re leaving me.”

John pauses. “I wouldn’t put it like that Sher-”

“You’re leaving, John.”

“You left me once too,” John snaps and immediately regrets it.

Sherlock’s face falls, but he recovers quickly, continuing on with his battle of logic.

“You could die.”

“I lived through it before.”

“You’ll have nightmares.”

“I already do.”

“It will be Hell.”

“I’ve already lived through my Hell, and war is not it.” John holds eye contact with Sherlock, and finally the other man collapses on the couch again.

“When are you supposed to leave?”

“Thursday.”

Three days.

Three more days with Sherlock and then- well, John didn’t know what came after that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s so much Sherlock _doesn’t_ say in their conversation that it could fill books. This is what he doesn’t say. 

He doesn’t say, “Who will wake you up from your nightmares? Who will play the violin for you?”

He doesn’t say, “Who will you laugh with? How will you cure your psychosomatic limp when it returns?”

He definitely doesn't say, “With you gone no one will compliment me, no one will make sure I eat. I’ll work until I literally drop from exhaustion. Without you I might turn back to drugs and I might just kill myself.”

He doesn’t say these last things especially because they’re selfish, and he can almost hear John’s “Bit not good.”

He does say, “What if you die?” But what he doesn’t follow up with is this: “If you die I cannot go on, John. If you die there will be nothing left in this world for me. There is you and there is the work, and without you the work means nothing.”

And still John insists on leaving him.

As soon as his flatmate retreats to his bedroom Sherlock picks up his violin. He spends some time tuning it, and then launches into one of his own compositions. 

John is completely silent upstairs, and Sherlock finds himself longing for some sort of noise, just to reassure himself that he is still there, and hasn’t left quite yet.

 *   *   *

Sherlock’s desperate. He’s so desperate that he phones Mycroft.

“I told you not to start a war,” he mocks.

“Sometimes it’s unavoidable.” His brother’s cool smooth voice returns from the other end of the line.

“Can you make him stay?” Sherlock asks.

“Certainly,” Mycroft returns. Sherlock can feel the hope rising in his chest. “But I won’t.”

“Why not?” 

“John is a grown man, and a soldier. He doesn’t need either of us to make decisions for him.”

“Traitor,” Sherlock hisses and hangs up, throwing his phone into John’s armchair.

 *   *   *

The eve of John’s departure finds the two of them running around London chasing after a criminal.

It was always going to end this way, Sherlock thought, whether one of them died or one of them left, it would always be immediately after a case. 

John peels off behind him, dashing down a side alley while Sherlock chases down the victim, launching himself at the man and bringing him down. 

The man- Thomas Steele- scrambles to his feet and dodges Sherlock’s punch, pulling his arm to make him stumble. He then locks his arm around Sherlock’s neck and puts a gun to his head.

_Boring._ Sherlock thinks.

“That is a terrible idea, mate,” John’s voice and the sound of a gun being cocked comes from behind Steele. “Drop the gun.”

Steele releases Sherlock, and he wrenches himself away from the criminal.

“Thanks,” he mutters to John, and his flatmate nods tersely.

They deposit Steele at Scotland Yard a half hour later, letting the officer on duty take him into custody. 

Then they go back to Baker street. Neither of them speaks the whole way home. Sherlock bounds up the stairs, pulling his scarf off and hanging it on the hook along with his coat. 

Then he collapses on the couch, steepling his fingers underneath his chin.

John stands there, looking at him for a while and then stomps up to his room, and comes back down a couple minutes later with a duffle bag that he deposits by the door. Then he comes and sits in his soft armchair.

Sherlock tries in vain to not think about how there will be no one to sit in that chair in a day.

But it’s all he can think about. Of all the things in the world, with all the things he could be focusing his massive brain on, this is what he chooses to dwell on. The inevitable empty space on that chair come this time tomorrow.

It’s unbearable.

* * *

Dawn comes with the force of a blow. _Don’t,_ Sherlock finds himself silently begging. _Stay away a little longer._  

But the sun doesn’t stop for anyone.

Tension begins to form in the air between them, they both know it’s time, they both don’t want to move. Moving makes it official. Moving means that these are the last moments, and these few seconds that will be stuck in their minds on repeat in the coming months.

Sherlock feels frozen.

John moves first. He stands bravely, masking the emotion he feels behind a small smile. His hands curl into fists at his side.

Sherlock doesn’t move.

“Sherlock,” John says. “It’s time.”

“Then leave.” The words come out harsher than he’s intended. But there’s no use in it now, he’s said it and John will be angry with him.

John reaches down pulled Sherlock to his feet, muttering something like, “Right bastard.”

When Sherlock is just barely vertical John crushes him in a hug, pinning his arms to his side. Sherlock stands there stiffly, wondering what to do with his arms, which he can hardly move and his hands, which are limp at his side.

John is resting his head on Sherlock’s shoulder and hanging on like his life would end if he didn’t.

When he steps back Sherlock gives him a stiff nod, and John looks like he’s going to cry and laugh at the same time. 

“Don’t blow yourself up,” John says, and his voice wavers just a little bit.

Sherlock nods and opens his mouth, but his throat feels too swollen to say anything. 

John steps away and picks up the duffel bag that’s by the door, slinging it over his shoulder.

“I’ll write to you,” John says.

He doesn’t try to extract a promise for return letters, they both know that Sherlock won’t write.

“Right,” John says, nodding once. “Right, goodbye.”

God, Sherlock hates that word, it feels so final and irrevocable. Why couldn’t John had said something like, “I’ll see you later” or “I’ll see you soon?”

John walks out the door, and Sherlock can see the mud from the earlier chase on his shoes, can read the exhaustion in the set of his shoulders, sees the sadness in his hesitation.

Sherlock is stepping forward, to do what, he has no idea, beg him to stay? Force him to? Place his hand on his shoulder and make him pause, to give them one more second, just one more.

The door shuts behind John, and Sherlock leans his head against the wood.

He is still ruminating on the word goodbye. 

_It’s not a good-bye_ , he thinks. _There is nothing about this that is_ good. _It’s an I-want-to-stay-but-I-can’t-bye. It’s an I-will-miss-you-bye, it’s a Please-don’t-leave-me-bye. It’s anyone of those, but it’s certainly not_ good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm giving myself feels while writing this. Umm yeah, please, comment, I love reviews.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s much different than Afghanistan. Surprisingly, it’s harsher in many ways. Much more dead, many more injuries. 

John doesn’t see very much fighting. He’s a Doctor, one who’s seen combat before, so they trust him enough to put him near the front line- on the Germany front- and he commands the makeshift hospital there.

Once the building actually had been a hospital, but it hardly looks modern now. Beds are crammed together to maximize space and the needed machines are smashed in between the beds. The soldiers lay wrapped up in gauze, some muttering incoherently from pain medication. Some aren’t lucky enough to get pain medication and are suffering in silence.

It’s so emotional here, John would rather be on the front lines, with a gun in his hand.

There are days when his commander takes him from the hospital and sends him with his company to patch them up. These days are few and far between and John longs for them. 

He’s much more suited to action than the dull complacency of the hospital.

The good thing about being so busy is that it doesn’t give him time enough to think. 

He can’t think about how bored Sherlock inevitably is and wonder if he’s found a new flatmate yet- he ignores the red hot flash of jealously he feels at that thought. He doesn’t have time to speculate if Sherlock is shooting the walls again or if he’s been injured. He doesn’t have time for these thoughts, so naturally they are all he thinks about.

His nightmares have not ceased, they have only gotten worse. He dreams of Sherlock being here on the front lines with him and getting shot, he dreams that he’s back standing in front of that damned hospital, he dreams that he never sees Sherlock again, that he dies here in France, from enemy fire.

The men in his squad don’t say anything if he screams in the middle of the night, even through he’s sure he does.

There are a few days, maybe once every three months, when his subconscious gives him a happy dream, a situation that he’s been longing for.

He is sitting in his armchair and watching Sherlock, who is pouting on the couch. Lestrade bursts into the flat, waving a folder about and proclaiming a case and then, with out any segue at all, John is running through the streets of London. Sherlock’s coat is flapping ahead of him, and there is a heavy weight of a gun in John’s hand. An elusive shadow is in front of them, darting down alleyways and-

“Doctor Watson,” a voice comes from above him. Thomas, John absently notes the owner.

He’s pressing his palms to his eyelids, and trying to maintain the perfect picture of 221B Baker street that his mind had given him. He’s trying to remember exactly what Sherlock looked like.

“You’re coming out with us today,” Thomas says, and John wakes up immediately, sitting up and pulling his boots towards him.

Thomas grins at him.

“What are we doing?” John asks.

“We’re going to the front lines, trying to push a block ahead,” Charles answers from across the aisle from John. “You up for the challenge?”

John stands up, “Always.”

 *   *   *

“You’re going to die if you stay here,” Charles wheezes, trying to push John away from him.

Doctor Watson is bandaging Charles’s leg, where he was shot a couple minutes ago. It’s not looking good, they hit a major artery. 

“Please, don’t make me say ‘We’re not leaving you behind,’ because I am not starring in a war movie, Charles. I won’t do it.” John banters with him easily as he wraps up his wounds. 

Another soldier, Preston, slides on his knees towards them.

“Med evac is on the way,” he tells them. “And Ryan’s been shot, he needs your help Doctor.”

“Keep pressure on this,” John tells Preston, placing the other soldier’s hand over Charles’s wound. 

John gets up, and sprints across the street, keeping low and hoping the Germans have terrible aim so that he can get across unscathed.

He pulls his hand gun out from his holster and lets off three shots, watching as two soldiers fall and two more take their place immediately.

“Let me see,” John says, and a couple of soldiers part so that John can see Ryan, who is on the ground. Blood is seeping out of his chest, dangerously close to his heart.

“Shit,” John breathes quietly.

Medical evacuation gets there in a few minutes, but by that time Ryan has already passed on. They take his body back to base, and get it ready to ship home.

But they secured the block.

 *   *   *

John washes the blood from his hands slowly. He’s seen a lot of people die. He’s killed a lot of people. 

But he can’t stop thinking about those two Germans, who were just fighting for their country, and they probably hadn’t done anything truly terrible in their lives.

Thomas leans up against the wall next to the sink, looking at John.

“You know,” he starts, “I used to read your blog.”

John looks at him. “Really?”

Thomas nods. “Why don’t you tell the guys one of your stories, get their mind of Ryan.”

John shrugs. “I doubt they’d want to hear any of my stories.”

Thomas rolls his eyes and drags him back to their quarters. “Doctor Watson’s going to tell us one of his detective stories,” Thomas says to the room, and they all turn towards them.

“What?” Wes asks.

“He met up with this guy, Sherlock,” Thomas looks over his shoulder, and shrugs.  “You tell it. It’s your story anyway.”

Thomas collapses on his bed, crossing his legs indian style and looking very much like a little kid.

John lowers himself onto his bed slowly and looks around at everyone.

He takes a deep breath and begins. “I met this man named Sherlock,” something inside of him twinges at the mention of his name. 

He tells them of their first case, the one he names A Study in Pink in his blog. They all pay attention, even Thomas, even though he’s read the story before. 

Of course, he omits the part about him shooting the cabbie, but he can tell from the knowing looks on their faces that they know it was him.

They seem to honestly enjoy it, which surprises John. 

Afterwards, when almost everyone has gone to sleep, John is still awake, full of memories of London. It helps, somehow, to tell stories, makes him miss home less. 

Thomas turns to him. “So, you and Sherlock, were you and him...?” He trails off. 

John shrugs a little bit, even though Thomas can’t see him. “We weren’t romantic,” he says in answer, “but...”

“But?” 

“We were all each other had, and that was enough.”

Thomas doesn’t say anything else, and John falls into a dreamless sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, okay, this one took a little longer, cause I had to rewrite it, so sorry about that. Also, if you want, you can follow me on tumblr, straightenshisbowtie.tumblr.com But, just know, that you really don't have to. Like, I post updates there, but mostly I just spam my followers with Sherlock, Doctor Who, Harry Potter and Supernatural feels. So, follow at your own risk.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock hears Lestrade pause outside the door. He continues hanging up pictures of the crime scene on his wall. 

Lestrade walks in and shuts the door behind him quietly.

“Ah, Lestrade, you’re here.”

“Have you got anything?” Lestrade asks, coming up behind him to examine the wall of pictures, post-its and string. He looks at the crook of Sherlock’s elbow in a movement that was supposed to be subtle.

Sherlock sends him a withering look. “I have to go talk to the brother.”

“The brother? You’ve already talked to him.”

Sherlock shrugs his coat on, gesturing at the web of photos. “Come on Lestrade, surely you can see it.”

Lestrade looks at the mass of pictures and shrugs hopelessly. “You’ll have to explain it to me.”

Sherlock sighs. (Idiot.) “It’s the picture,” he says, pointing to the nightstand.

“Yeah, of her parents.”

“Right, but there’s one missing right here, see the line of dust where the frame used to sit? That was the picture of her brother, her only other family, but it’s missing, why?” 

“Maybe she just moved it.”

Sherlock shook his head. “There’s no pictures of her brother in the entire flat, but there’s plenty of her parents.”

“Okay, so we go talk to her brother.”

“Exactly,” Sherlock swept out of the door. 

*   *   * 

“We had a row a couple weeks back,” the brother, Andrew says, shifting a little bit.

“What about?” Lestrade asks in a kind voice. It makes Sherlock tense, no point in being kind when he obviously knows who the murderer is.

“She didn’t like my new girlfriend. Hated her actually.”

“Why?” Sherlock asks. “Because didn’t like competing for attention, especially when your girlfriend is cheating on you, and she didn’t like the smoking habit you’d picked up. Understandable, family seems to be a bit cross about these things. No, more likely it’s because she liked your girlfriend first, she was the one to introduce you two, after all.”

Andrew looks up sharply.

“Sherlock,” Lestrade says quietly.

“Yet, you refused to break up with her, probably because she has money.” (What a boring motivation.)

“Mr. Holmes!” Andrew says loudly.

“Sherlock!” Greg bellows at the same time.

Sherlock rolls his eyes and exits the room.

“Thank you for your time, I’m sorry about him,” Sherlock hears Lestrade apologize for him. (It makes him miss John.)

Sherlock is already halfway down the street when Lestrade exits the building.

Sherlock listens to the sound of the man’s footsteps and breathing as he jogs to catch up. “Listen, I know it’s been hard for you without John, but that’s no excuse to say things like that.”

“What I said was true,” Sherlock says flatly.

“Well, yes, but you could be a bit nicer about it.”

Sherlock snorts. 

Lestrade looks baffled for a moment and then rallies. “I know that it feels strange without John here-”

“I know, I know, you think that with John gone I can’t function anymore, that _sentiment_ has taken over and that I have started using again. Well, I haven’t.” Sherlock pulls his sleeve up to reveal his arm, free from any sort of bruising or needle pricks. “You can stop worrying,” he says coldly.

“Sherlock, I’ll worry about you until John comes back.”

“If he comes back,” Sherlock says quietly.

He can tell from the look on Lestrade’s face that he has no idea what to say to that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, comment, whether you hate it or love it. :)


	5. Chapter 5

It becomes a tradition, the story telling. John feels like he’s just bragging, but Thomas assures him that the soldiers find that time as the best part of the day.

Today it is particularly hard, because he has gotten to the point in time where he has to tell the story of Moriarty and St. Bartholomew's hospital. 

John breaks down half way through it, losing his ability to speak and unable to even see straight. 

“And, he’s standing on the roof-” he stops, and the silence is deafening. 

No one even makes a sound. 

Suddenly, John understands why he hates it so much out here. It’s because it feels like Sherlock’s dead again. It feels like those days when he would wander around London for hours, wondering if Sherlock was happy where he was, knowing that if there was a Heaven, then Sherlock was there, and was bored out of his mind. He would be begging for the chance to get into Hell.

But now it’s so much worse, because John imagines him alone in London. Taking cases without anyone to cover his back. 

Still, no one in the tent has made a sound. 

Thomas shifts slightly. “It’s okay, Doctor Watson, you don’t have to go on.”

John shakes his head slightly.

“He is standing on the roof of the hospital,” he says again. “And he called me, and said that the phone call was his note.” He pauses, looking down at his hands, which are twisting together. “I didn’t know this at the time, but Moriarty had threatened me, Molly and Lestrade. We would die if Sherlock didn’t. I thought he was jumping because the world thought he was a fraud.” His voice cracks slightly. “I never did though, and I just kept thinking that that should be enough. Somehow I thought that my belief would be enough for him. And then he jumped.”

Charles ran his hand through his hair. “He survived right? Because if he didn’t, I’m taking my gun and I’m going out and killing a motherload of Germans right now to let of my feelings.”

John cracked a small smile. “Yeah, he came back three years later, once he’d gotten rid of Moriarty’s web.”

“I would have killed him,” Preston says. “When he came back, I would have killed him for making me think he was dead.”

“What did you do?” James asks, “when he came back.”

John smiles, “I made tea.” He laughs. “I made tea, and when I turned back around, he was still standing there, so I punched him.”

Thomas laughs. 

They go to sleep soon after that, people chattering as they crawl into bed. John tries to fall asleep, but every time he closes his eyes his thoughts drift back to home.

He tries an old technique, picturing a perfectly still lake until he falls asleep.

He dreams again of Sherlock. He supposes he should have known, considering the story he told tonight. 

John walks out of his bedroom, ruffling his hair with one hand and yawning. He descends the stair to find Sherlock sitting in his chair.

“Hello, John.”

His voice is cool and even.

John stares at him, it’s been three years since he last saw his best friend. Three years since he saw him commit suicide.

“I- you’re back.”

“Clearly. Were you always this boring? God, I thought you were more exciting, although I suppose you can’t have been too exciting or else I wouldn’t have committed a fake suicide. You actually cried at my grave.” Sherlock looks amused by this. 

John is staring at him. He feels like he can’t move.

“Well, this has been lovely, but I must get going.”

“You’re not going to stay?” John says.

“Why would I?” Sherlock looks down his nose at him. “There’s no reason for me to stay, I have a case in Germany.”

“Are you coming back?” John grips the doorway.

“No.” The look Sherlock gives him is the one that he reserves for the people he has no respect for. He has never looked at John in that way before.

Sherlock doesn’t even say goodbye as he sweeps out the door.

John wakes up panting, half expecting to hear violin music. Then he remembers he’s in France, Sherlock can’t play the violin to wake him up from nightmares anymore and that was definitely not how his homecoming went.

John sits in the dark, breathing heavily, trying not to think of the expression on Sherlock’s face. 

A high pitched sound comes from outside, and John sits up, tilting his head to the side, expecting that to improve his hearing. He slips out of bed and walks over to the flap that lets him outside. 

He looks up, trying to figure out where the plane was coming from, and if it is friendly or not.

It flies straight over his head; John cranes his neck to watch it fly over, and then shields his eyes from the bright flash of the bomb that blows the windows out of the hospital.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Sherlock's perspective is hard for me to write, so I had to do some parts over for this chapter, so hopefully it goes alright.

Sherlock strides into the Yard with his coat flapping behind him. London is easing into winter with the beginning of November. The rain is coming down in droves, evaporating of the pavement and giving the city a humid smell. 

It has been three months since the war started and exactly 87 days since John left.

John weighs down on Sherlock’s mind. He’s there in every conversation, in every word. Half of Sherlock’s brain is always predicting John’s reactions to different things, but how can he predict when John is so unpredictable? 

He strides into Lestrade’s office, ignoring his stricken look- shouldn’t he be used to Sherlock barging in whenever he wanted?

“I need a case,” Sherlock announces. “A robbery, a mugging, anything, I know there aren’t any interesting murders. For some reason everyone stops with the gruesome murders when war starts, what is it about war that makes people so ... _uninteresting_?”

Sherlock can hear John say, “Bit not good,” in his ear, and he shuts his mouth. 

This is exactly the problem. He can hear John in every word. He is always _there_ and never present.

“Sherlock-” Lestrade begins, and Sherlock can hear the rejection in his voice.

Sherlock purses his lips and considers for a moment. “Lestrade, I know you’re probably drowning in a number of thefts right now, war does make people desperate.”

“Sherlock,” Lestrade starts out again.

Sherlock sighs loudly. 

Lestrade stands up. Sherlock looks at him, really _looks._

His hands are shaking slightly, his mouth is tilted down at the corners, the wrinkles in his skin are more pronounced. He has bad news.

“There’s a new development, it happened just this morning, have you even looked at the news?”

“A development in a case?” Sherlock asks, because there is only one other option, and he does not want to hear about whatever happened in France. 

Lestrade shakes his head. “Our side of the whole East front was bombed last night, they haven’t even had time to tally the dead.”

Sherlock’s world has suddenly narrowed. “John,” he whispers.

Lestrade nods. 

Sherlock stands up, pushing the door to Lestrade’s office open and walking over to the television that is sitting in the corner. Detectives are gathered around it.

Sherlock looms over them, looking at the footage of war.

Smoke is hanging in the air, and the bare remains of destroyed buildings are featured on the screen. 

Men and women in uniform are running around, pulling injured people out of the remains of the buildings; Sherlock quickly calculates the odds of John being on screen. Not likely.

There’s a close up of a burned body, and Sherlock’s mind automatically conjures up the image of John, his skin scorched and dark, all the liquids in his body drained, until he didn’t even look like John anymore.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Sally says, putting a hand on his arm.

Sherlock jerks away automatically, recoiling from the touch. 

“Of course he is,” he says disdainfully.

Of course he is. John is not hurt, he can’t be hurt. John is fine, perfectly healthy, his blood is pumping at a normal rate, into the inferior and superior vena cava and then into the right atrium, goes through the tricuspid valve and then the right ventrical, then pumps through the pulmonary valve and into the lungs. Perfectly normal. 

Perfectly normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, special thanks to this website: http://www.capitalcardiology.com/heartwork.htm   
> So that I could write that lovely bit about the heart.


	7. Chapter 7

“Doctor Watson?” A soldier stands in front of him, a satellite phone in his hand and his other hand raised in a salute.

John straightens slowly, raising one hand to return the salute. The soldier hands the phone to John.

He raises it to his ear, “Hello?” he asks wearily.

“John,” a cool smooth voice returns from the other end. 

“Mycroft?” John asks incredulously. “Listen, I’m pulling bodies from smoking buildings and trying to save some lives, so whatever you’re calling me for had better be damn important.”

John can almost see Mycroft’s frown.

“I’m just calling to confirm your health. Sherlock will be worried, I’m sure.”

John silently curses Mycroft, the sound of Sherlock’s name is like a punch right over his heart. It sounds normal to be discussing Sherlock with Mycroft. Except it is not normal because there is smoke in his nose and burned bodies at his feet.

“Is Sherlock there with you?” John asks, his hand clutches the phone tighter.

If Sherlock was there, if John could just talk to him for a couple of seconds ...

“No, he’s not. He’s down at Scotland Yard right now, harassing Lestrade.”

“Still following him with the cameras then?” John asks.

“No, Lestrade just texted me.” Mycroft pauses, and John is absorbed by the idea of Mycroft and Lestrade having a texting relationship. “Would you like me to tell Sherlock something from you?”

John’s brain jams. 

“Er- just tell him to eat something, I’m sure he hasn’t eaten in days.” John falls silent, shifting on the sidewalk. There are several things he wants to say to Sherlock, but nothing that he wants to go through Mycroft. 

“Anything else?” Mycroft asks.

“No,” John eventually says, even though words are crowding into his mouth, begging to be said.

“Well, go and kill some Germans, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft says, and hangs up.

John pulls the phone away from his ear, handing the phone back to the soldier who is hovering in the background. 

He turns crisply and starts running back to headquarters.

James pops up from the rubble, “Was that Sherlock?” he asks eagerly.

“No,” John says distractedly, helping James pull a body out and laying in the long line of the dead.

“Oh, I heard you say his name.” James’s face fell slightly, like he was hoping for a good story.

John considered explaining, but he didn’t want to, and besides, he needed to save his breath to help.

“John!” Thomas yells, staggering out of the building with a body over his shoulder, “He’s still alive.”

“Put him here,” John says, helping Thomas lay him out on the pavement.

John takes his pulse and checks his pupils. Normal, except the heart rate is a little fast, but considering the situation...

And just like that, Sherlock is pushed to the back of his mind, and John continues on in the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mystrade reference just for fun, although I don't actually ship them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a really really short chapter, and it's fluff, but I should be updating later tonight or tomorrow with some angst. (Some serious angst.) Also, I know that I've been switching back from John to Sherlock and back again up to this point, but this is all going to change now. I'm going to be focusing more on John in the upcoming chapters. Because that's my plot area of this fic. But don't worry, we will get snippets of Sherlock, and then focus on him heavily later.

Something heavy weighs down his mattress, but John isn’t interested enough to open his eyes yet.

“Mail came,” Thomas says, and John hears his footsteps walk away before connecting his words with the weight on his bed.

It’s rare to get mail, even rarer for John, who has only Harry, who doesn’t write and Sherlock, who won’t write.

John sits up in bed, his blanket falling off his chest and he reaches for the package- a package, who the hell sent him a package?

His name is inscribed on it in black pen, with writing that John has seen a thousand times, on post-its stuck to the wall back home.

A smile tugs at the edges of his lips and he picks up his knife from his beside table, flipping it open and cutting open the tape with ease.

He opens the box to find a voice recorder. 

God, is he really sentimental enough to send him a voice recorder?

Cautiously, he presses play, spinning the dial down enough so that he can only hear it if he holds it close to his ear.

The soft strains of violin music come from the voice recorder, and John closes his eyes, letting the music take him back to the darkness of four in the morning. He can almost smell the tea that would be brewing on the stove.

John falls back down onto the mattress, curling up underneath the covers and listening intently, pretending like he’s home.

It only works for so long.

 


	9. Chapter 9

There’s no denying it, it has been a really bad day. 

First, John had slept through breakfast, the recording of Sherlock’s violin music lulling him back to sleep. And second, the Germans attacked in earnest.

A pitched battle was now occurring all over the base now. John and his unit are sticking together mostly.

Currently, they are sheltered behind a building, occasionally shooting at the enemy.

John and Thomas are across the street, in a bit of an alley. 

Thomas is calm, evidence that he’s been in battles before. He calmly reloads his clip, holding the gun so that it points down at the floor. “What’s our move?” he asks.

John takes a deep breath and analyzes the situation. 

“Don’t move!” Someone from the other end of their alley with a heavy German accent shouts, and John curses, turning around with his hands up.

Thomas follows his lead. 

“Put the gun down,” the first man says. 

John lowers his gun to the round slowly, he hears Thomas’s gun rattle the ground behind him.

Their team is dealing with other hostile’s right now. They don’t have much of a chance for rescue. 

“On your knees,” the man says. 

John complies, keeping his hands up.

The barrel of a gun is pressing against his head, the cold metal making the hair on the back of John’s neck stand up.

He can almost hear Sherlock’s voice whisper, “Vatican Cameos.” He grins.

It takes him maybe two seconds to reach up and swipe the gun away from his head. He stands up swiftly, punching the German in the face, and he reels backwards.

He hears a grunt as Thomas tackles the other man, keeping John from getting shot in the back.

John scoops up his gun, firing first at the man that is about to shoot at Thomas, and then turns back and shoots the first man.

John stays still for a moment, keeping his gun trained on the enemy in case they weren’t dead and then relaxes.

He turns around and half expects to see a mop of curly black hair and a wide exhilarated grin followed by, “Dinner?”

Instead, Thomas is getting to his feet, dusting of his knees. 

“Alright?” John asks.

Thomas nods, “You?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine, here comes our unit,” he nods over to the mess of men that are making their way across the street towards them.

They’re keeping low and ducking, but still, James goes down with a bullet and Charles drags him along the ground. 

John drops to his knees beside’s James automatically, checking for his pulse, but there is none. 

Head shot, clean kill.

“He’s gone,” John says, straightening up. His hands are steady as he passes his gun from one hand to another.

“What do we do now, Cap?” Thomas asks.

“I’m not the Captain,” John says absently. 

“Well, the Captain’s dead, and I nominate you,” Thomas says.

“I second that,” Charles says, wiping sweat off of his forehead. 

“Well, we try and find another unit then, make a stand.” John isn’t sure if this is the right thing to do, if there even is a right thing to do in this situation, but he makes the best of it that he can.

Evidently his best isn’t good enough. Because two hours later, he’s lowering his gun to the ground again, and this time he doesn’t get to pick it back up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like such an evil person right now.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took a bit, last night I went out and then there was the new Doctor Who episode to consider, and so yeah, there was that. And then today I had writers block, so I broke my streak of updating everyday. :(

John is huddled up on the thinnest mattress he has ever had the displeasure of sleeping on. He knows that he should be grateful that he gets a mattress at all, but still, he can feel the wires from the cot digging into his back at night and it doesn’t help him sleep at all. 

He still has the voice recorder. It was luck, sheer luck and sentiment, that had made him slip it into his pocket before the Germans took him.

It’s laying on the mattress, John is curled around it, resisting the temptation to press play. The batteries would run out too soon, and he wants to save it, he wants to save the music for the day when he really needs it.

Footsteps clomp down the corridor. John stuffs the recorder back in his pocket, just in case. He doesn’t want it taken away, and he doesn’t want to leave it in the cell. If they kill him he wants to remember home in his last seconds.

He can hear keys jangling and the lock turns. John swings himself up to a sitting position, his feet scuffing against the floor.

“You a Doctor?” the man asks. 

John nods.

“We need you.”

The man’s name is Marcel, John remembers. He is not the typical German. He doesn’t grab John’s arm roughly, he does not say terrible things to him, he does not purposely starve him. On more than one occasion Marcel has slipped him extra food. 

John can’t help but like him. He seems honest.

“Where are we going?” John asks, hoping that he is able to ask this question.

“They didn’t tell me.”

John slips his hand into his pocket, grabbing hold of the voice recorder and holding on tight.

Marcel hands him off to another soldier, one that John hasn’t met before.

The man takes his arm roughly, pulling him down the hall. 

“You’re in for a treat, Doc, not many people get to see what you’re about to see.”

“What am I about to see?” John asks carefully.

“Patience,” the man says, pulling him into an elevator. John stands on one side, and the soldier on the other. The other man presses the button to the second floor, which is still underground. 

John lets go of his hope for seeing the sun today.

His eyes flick to the soldier’s gun at his waist. If he was well fed and at full strength he might be able to do it, wrestle the gun from him and shoot him.

The soldier notices his glance and backhands him so hard across the face that John falls against the wall, holding his face in his hands. 

Right, so not going for the gun then. 

The elevator doors _ping_ and John gets to his feet, using the railing as support.

The soldier grabs his arm again and pulls him along a long winding hallway before abruptly turning to his right and opening a door there with a swipe of his card.

The step into a sterile white room, and put on a mask and gloves. The soldier shoves something remotely resembling a hospital gown at him, and John pulls it on over his threadbare dirty clothes.

The soldier swipes his card again and the next door slides open.

John takes a step in and freezes.

God, it’s like .... it’s like Baskerville except with humans. 

It’s the sickest thing that John has ever seen, people in cages. The man immediately to his left is coughing up blood into his hands. Patches of his arms have turned black. 

“That’s the black plague,” John says.

The soldier nods. 

“You’re testing the black plague on innocent men?”

“They are not innocent.”

“What are their crimes?”

The soldier looks at him like it’s obvious. “They were the enemy.”

It’s all John can do not to punch him and take the gun. “How long has he got?”

The other man shrugs. “He was infected a couple days ago. Optimistically he’s got four days left.”

John looks at the man again, who has stopped coughing up blood and is now curled up on his side, staring at nothing.

John tries to slip his hand into his pocket, but it is blocked by the hospital gown. He wishes he could wrap his fingers around the voice recorder. Wishes that he could be sitting in the darkness of 221B with tea boiling in the background and Sherlock pouting on the couch. 

Another soldier comes forward, looking healthy amidst the dying coughing prisoners. 

“I’m Doctor Weeber. Forgive me if I don’t shake your hand.” Doctor Weeber looks down at John’s dirt covered shoes with ill disguised disapproval. 

“What do you need me with?”

“We need another Doctor for our soldiers,” Weeber says. “I’m too involved in my studies here to be of any use.”

“Then why am I here rather than in your hospital?”

“Insurance,” Weeber says.

“Excuse me?”

“If you intentionally harm any of our soldiers we will bring your unit into this lab and use them in our ... activities.”

John’s face tightens. “I don’t like threats.”

“I don’t care.” Weeber says flatly. He waves his hand and the nameless soldier pulls John backwards, pulling him out the door. 

As John lays on the mattress that night he presses play, allowing himself to lose himself in the music for just a minute, before shutting it off. The echoes of the notes reverberate around his head for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, this is actually based on truth. In WWII the Japanese tested the Black Death on Chinese prisoners. They also had exercises where Doctors would preform surgeries, like taking an appendix out, and then watch the prisoners bleed to death on the table. (I'm taking a WWII class currently, so tidbits like this will slip into the story.)  
> Germany did NOT do this in actuality, it was the Japanese.


	11. Chapter 11

Sherlock wakes up in a dark room. He assesses it quickly, looking at the damp floor to the moldy walls covered in green peeling wall paper and two burly men standing in front of him. 

They had used rope to tie his hands together. His legs are tied to the legs of the chair. He tests the strength of the rope subtly, strong, but the knots aren’t. He can do this.

“How did you find us?” The first man asks.

Sherlock sighs. These are amateurs, really, it was much better last week when they tried to kill him without even asking him any questions. That woman was much smarter, almost a match for him. Obviously she wasn’t smart _enough_ , or he wouldn’t be sitting here. It was disappointing really. (And he can hear Moriarty’s voice in his head, “I’m _disappointed_ in you, Sherlock.) 

“It was obvious, really,” Sherlock says, his long fingers picking their way through the knot that was holding his wrists together in an uncomfortable fashion. “You left a trail, it was child’s play to follow it back here.”

“What trail?”

“The man was obviously involved in underground dealings, that much was obvious from his nails, so I went through a couple of old contacts before I found my way to his dealer. From the location of his apartment and notes on his fridge it was obvious he was working for your boss. Do I get to meet her?”

Sherlock smiled up at them, using his wide grin and making it as cocky as possible.

He gets punched for that of course.

He has is hands free by this time. Really, they were terrible at knots. This was nothing like last month, when he got kidnapped by the drug lord of London, now _that_ had been interesting.

In the end it takes him all of ten minutes to escape.

It takes Lestrade another ten minutes to get there.

“You can’t keep doing this,” the DI says to him.

Sherlock doesn’t even deign that with a response.

“You’ve been kidnapped five times in the last two months alone Sherlock, if you continue doing this you’re going to get killed one day.”

“I’m fine, I haven’t been hurt.”

“I suppose a cracked rib and a broken nose mean nothing to you then?”

Sherlock waves that away. “Insignificant,” he sniffs.

“It is not bloody well insignificant!” Lestrade yells, and yes, it’s interesting that he’s losing his temper with Sherlock after all this time. “You’re going to get killed and we’re all going have to attend your damn funeral _again_.” 

That has almost no effect on Sherlock, after all, he’d attended his own funeral last time and no one had looked particularly upset except for John.

Sherlock blinks the thought of his best friend away.

It’s becoming easier to do that, as long as he keeps busy, which he has been lately. Being kidnapped.

“I’m _bored._ ” Sherlock says to Lestrade. The D.I. takes it much worse than John used to.

“I. Don’t. Care. If you get kidnapped one more time I will not give you any more cases.”

Sherlock scoffs.

“I mean it, Sherlock, I will cut you off, and then what will you do?”

Lestrade seems unaccountable pleased with himself, something that Sherlock finds mildly offensive.

“Fine,” Sherlock snarls, and then walks away, because there is nothing more to say to the man, he will just ‘casually’ bring up John again and ask if Sherlock has heard from him, which Sherlock hasn’t and it will just make it harder to brush away the thought of John again. Which he is getting good at.

Sherlock flags a taxi, and spends the ride home musing to himself. 

He checks the mailbox when he gets home. 

Nothing.

There has been nothing for the past two months. The empty blackness of the inside of the box seems to taunt Sherlock. He lets the lid drop and walks up the stairs, pulling his scarf off as he goes.

The possibility of John’s death looms over him. 

_Impossible_ , his mind spits. _If he was dead I would have been notified._ But still, his brain was telling him one thing and his gut was telling him quite another.

“He said to remind you to eat,” Mycroft had said, the last time that Sherlock had heard from John.

It is that, of all things, that makes Sherlock choke down half a muffin that night, while he tries to think of other ways to cure his boredom.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter was supposed to be about John, I swear, I had it all planned and everything. But then I see this: http://my-friend-the-frog.tumblr.com/post/20705575640/i-want-to-go-home-home-is-where-the-heart-is  
> And I just lose it. So yeah. This chapter is totally inspired by that.

“Are you high?” Lestrade asks incredulously. And really, he cannot deal with this. Not right now. Not after the fifty thousand kidnappings and after the serial murderer and after hearing about the France-Germany warfront is going badly. 

He cannot take another moment of bad news.

“Of course not,” Sherlock scoffs, but Lestrade can hear it in his voice. He speaks just a fraction too slow to be sober.

“God damn it Sherlock,” Lestrade says, sinking into John’s armchair, pressing his fingertips to his forehead. “We agreed. We agreed that this was over.”

“You agreed,” Sherlock pouts, pulling his dressing gown tight over his body. 

Lestrade can count his ribs from here, and honestly, Doctor Watson needs to get back as soon as possible or Sherlock is going to overdose or starve himself to death.

“You and my poor rotting excuse for a brother agreed that I should stop doing drugs. _I_ never said anything about it.” Sherlock slumps lower in the chair. 

“I thought you were on board, I thought you were ready to leave this life behind,” Lestrade says softly, trying to reason with Sherlock.

Sherlock scowls.

“I want to go home,” he says, and he sounds like a little child when he says it.

And yes, something in Lestrade twinges at that, at Sherlock sounding lost and confused.

“You are home,” Lestrade says kindly.

Sherlock gives him his best demeaning look. “It’s not home anymore,” he mumbles, and then snaps his mouth shut.

Lestrade looks down at his hands, which are rubbing together. “John’ll be home soon.” He doesn’t look up when he says it, but he can still see Sherlock wince at the sound of John’s name.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything, just reaches to the side.

He has a teacup settled on the couch. His fingers are skimming the top of the rim over and over and over.

Lestrade watches, almost hypnotized.

“I think he’s dead,” Sherlock says suddenly. 

“You would have been notified,” Lestrade says automatically. Surely they would know if John had died, Mycroft at least would  have heard something.

“If _feels_ like he’s dead.” Sherlock says.

And there’s honestly nothing Lestrade cans say to that, nothing at all. He sits in silence for a long while, but there’s nothing he can do.

“If you’re high tomorrow I will not let you in on the serial murder we have going. And if this becomes an addiction I will personally see to it that John knows what’s going on.” He takes a moment to imagine John’s disappointed look and smiles slightly.

Sherlock leans to the side, falling onto the couch to lay down. His body curves around the teacup, his fingers skimming the rim, the handle, the base. 

“Go away,” he mumbles into the fabric. 

Lestrade thinks about saying something else, but he decides he shouldn’t, and he walks out the door, praying that John will get back soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am giving myself feels. Is that normal?


	13. Chapter 13

Mealtimes are John’s favorite part of the day. After a week of not deliberately killing anyone they bring him out to eat with all the other prisoners. He gets to see his unit again. 

He slides into the seat next to Charles, grinning at them. They are all sitting together, still protecting each other. Their clothes are hanging loosely off of them, already the lack of nutrition is making itself known.

“Hey, John,” Charles says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Charles has a streak of blood that is running across his face, but no evidence of cuts. John doesn’t want to know why it’s there.

“Hullo,” he says in return, grinning at the people around him. He frowns slightly, a sense of foreboding settles into his stomach. “Where’s Thomas?” he asks.

Charles looks down at the table, and when it’s clear that he’s not going to answer, Preston speaks up. 

“He was trying to help a woman yesterday walk here yesterday, and they took him away.”

“Probably shot him,” Charles whispers to his knees.

Suddenly John isn’t quite as hungry. He pushes his plate away, and the table is filled with an uncomfortable silence. 

The weeks pass in a blur, and John keeps treating his patients. He doesn’t even think about it anymore, he may be a soldier, but first and foremost he is a doctor. He hates the days they bring in prisoners, because they always tell him to treat the Germans first, before the French or the British or the occasional American volunteer.

They bring in a woman about a six months since he started working there. “See to everyone else first,” they say, and then leave.

John ignores them, because he recognizes this woman, from years ago, when he used to roam the streets of London.

“Your name is Tracy, right?” he asks, and she nods. 

“I remember you,” she whispers. 

John nods encouragingly. “My name is John Watson, I have a partner, Sherlock Holmes, we questioned you about your brother-in-law’s death.”

“That’s right,” she said. “You solved it.”

He places a hand on her forehead. It’s much hotter than it should be. He walks over to the cabinet and takes out some pills. 

“Swallow these,” he commands. “I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.”

She nods.

When he comes back twenty minutes later she says, “I read your blog a bit after you solved our case. Are you and Sherlock still together?”

John sighs, “We aren’t -we weren’t a couple.”

“Past tense?”

“Well, I haven’t seen him in a year, and he hasn’t written to me, even before I was a POW. So I don’t know what we are anymore.”

“Well, you’re definitely _something_ ,” she says and then falls asleep.

She doesn’t say, ‘I can hear it in your voice,’ even though John knows she can. Everyone can hear it in his voice, even when he’s cursing Sherlock. 

She’s not in the hospital when John comes back the next day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally killed Thomas. I'm so sad. I loved Thomas.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically the only reason I wrote this chapter tonight was because my internet went out for a couple minutes. So you can thank that random crazy happenstance for this angst.

Mycroft is waiting in the flat when Sherlock returns from solving a case. He is twirling his umbrella in his hands as he sits in John’s armchair. Sherlock ignores him automatically.

Sherlock goes straight to the kitchen, settling in at the counter and fiddling with the knobs on his microscope until he can see exactly what he wants, which is nothing. 

It takes an hour for Mycroft to move. Sherlock resists the urge to smirk. Instead he places the lamb brain he’s been meaning to experiment on in the microwave. He starts to press the buttons, but Mycroft’s hand shoots out, clamping down on his fingers. 

Sherlock turns to him, scowling.

Mycroft holds up a cigarette for him, Sherlock plucks it out of his fingers. 

Bad news then. 

His brother flicks his light on, holding it out so that Sherlock can light first. He takes a long drag, blowing the smoke out in a thin line, appreciating the way it twirls in the air drafts. It’s a kind of art, the only art besides crime that he appreciates.

“I heard you had a relapse,” Mycroft says.

“Yes, thank you, I’m fine now.” Sherlock turns away, pressing some buttons on the microwave. It starts up, the light inside illuminating the inside.

“I have information on John,” Mycroft says.

Sherlock resists the urge to turn around. He stays still, his muscles frozen in place. The cigarette is dangling from his lips, the tip smoking just a little bit. After a moment he reaches up, settling it more firmly and taking another long drag, letting the nicotine permeate his body.

“Six months ago the front lines buckled right where John was serving. We finally tracked him down, he’s a prisoner of war, just behind the lines, they’re forcing him to work as a doctor.”

Sherlock stares at the lamb brain that is rotating in the microwave.

“He’s alive?” Sherlock asks.

“Yes,” Mycroft says. “For now,” he adds as an afterthought.

The relief that hits Sherlock overhauls every other sensation. _He’s alive. Heart beating, lungs working, synapses firing. He’s alive._  

“He’s been there for six months?” Sherlock asks, even though he doesn’t need to. He’s already processed the information. “Is anything being done to recover them?”

Mycroft takes a drag on his cigarette. “We’re winning the war,” he says. “That’s the only thing we can do for them.” 

Silence hangs in the air between them, stifling them. The only noise is the microwave, the steady hum.

“I’m sorry,” Mycroft says finally, and then picks up his umbrella and leaves the room.

Sherlock puts his head down on the counter, trying to ignore every thought in his brain, but he can’t. It doesn’t work like that.

The brain explodes in the microwave, and Sherlock doesn’t even look up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know it's true love when he doesn't even look at an exploding brain.


	15. Chapter 15

_Day 310_

_Today I treated a man with a bullet wound in his shoulder. It brought up unpleasant memories for me. We didn’t have enough anesthesia to knock him out so he was just lying there, moaning in pain._

_As patients go, he was very cooperative, he didn’t try to strangle me when he heard my accent and he didn’t move too much. I tried to get him patched up as well as I could, but he might die still. The hospitals aren’t very clean here, and they invite infection._

_When I was leaving to tend to the other patients he grabbed my wrist and breathed, “Thank you,” in English. Up to that point he’d only spoken in German._

_As I have worked in this hospital I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that the enemy is not a faceless unjust killing machine. They are people. Had circumstances been slightly different, I might have been the one lying on the table with a prisoner of war wielding a scapula over me._

_As a considered this man, and Marcel, the guard turned friend, I was forced to admit that I didn’t think of the Germans as enemies. Some of them are friends. I genuinely like some of them, even Steven, who beats me at cards when I’m allowed to play._

_I’m afraid that this will only make it harder for me if I ever escape and must go back to fighting._

 

_Day 312_

_I keep having nightmares. Sherlock is in them less frequently, mostly I’m afraid someone will die on my operating table, or I have to kill Marcel, or Marcel kills me. I wake up wondering if Charles is really dead or if that was just a nightmare. So many of my unit have died from starvation, I wonder if it would have been kinder to refuse to act as a doctor and let them all be shot on the first day._

_I went through the day with my eyes trying to slide shut and my hands less than steady. It didn’t help my fears of accidentally killing someone._

_I’ve been here for nine months now, almost ten. That means I’ve been away from London for a year and three months. I miss the city, I miss the cloudy sky and the rain and sounds of traffic._

_I miss Sherlock playing his violin at the window and running through the streets after a murder. I even miss the too-frequent trips to the clinic after cases._

_I’m sure Mrs. Hudson is worrying herself sick by now. Sherlock probably hasn’t even noticed my absence, let alone the fact that I haven’t written for almost ten months._

_Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever even be allowed to go back there. It seems like a dream. All there is is this cell and the hospital. All there is is this German camp, there is no other life. There can’t possibly be something different._

 

_Day 316_

_Charles died two days ago._

 

_Day 320_

_Marcel told me that the American’s are protesting in the streets, wanting to join the war. I asked him for which side, jokingly._

_He looked at the floor. “Yours of course,” he said. “It’ll be our death,” he added, quieter._

_He says Japan joined their side last month, of course China was just as quick to join the Allies in retaliation. No love lost between those countries, even still._

_Maybe the war will end._

 

_Day 323_

_Marcel was killed for treason, another guard has taken his place, this one not nearly as friendly. I asked him what his name was, and he told me it wasn’t any of my business._

_When he brought breakfast this morning I asked if he had any jam to go with, and he glowered at me._

_I must have picked up some bad habits from Sherlock, because then I added, “Is he nice?”_

_He seemed confused. “Who?”_

_It was obvious that he’d been shagging just before he came, his hair was sticking up as much as his military haircut would allow, his tie was off center and his pants were unzipped._

_I shouldn’t have said anything._

_He beat me so that I have two black eyes, possible cracked ribs and bruises all across my body. I’m not allowed to treat myself._

_I went through the day treating other patients and tried not to wince too much._

_It feels like it will never end. The war will continue on forever, and there’s nothing I can do about it._


	16. Chapter 16

“John, what the Hell-”

“What would you like me to have him say next?”

They’re going to die. Calm spreads over John. Someone is going to die, they will not get out of this alive.

The least he can do is make sure that Sherlock gets out at least. Maybe he can continue.

“Are you alright?” Sherlock asks, and he’s concerned, John can see it in his eyes. It’s raw emotion there for half a second, before it’s replaced by a cold mask for Moriarty.

“You can talk,” Moriarty says.

John  sighs, and gives Sherlock a brief nod.

“Take it,” Sherlock says, holding out the drive. 

“Boring,” Moriarty sings, tossing it into the pool.

John lunges forward, this is his chance. “Sherlock, run!”

The sound of a bullet firing echoes around the room and then suddenly all John can feel is heat, and all he can see are Sherlock’s eyes widening, almost imperceptibly.

He wakes up gasping.

_It didn’t happen like that,_ he reminds himself. _We both made it out._ He sits up, swinging his legs off the edge of the bed. He focuses on calming his breathing. It takes him a moment to realize that he’s clutching the recorder in his left hand. 

He can’t press play. He can’t. The battery is almost dead. He needs to save it. God, he’s so tired. He’s just so tired.

The bars rattle slightly and John stands up. Time for another day at work.

The hospital is busy today.

He’s halfway through his patients when Steven comes up to him. “John, I’m sorry, but we have to go,” he says quietly. 

John looks up at him. “Can’t it wait?” he asks.

The German shakes his head.

“All right,” John says slowly and puts his clipboard down. He releases the pen reluctantly. 

He’s already decided that he will not fight back when they inevitably decide to kill him. He just wants it to be over. Besides, he couldn’t kill Steven, he’s a friend, or close to one anyways.

They walk through the hospital quietly.

“Are you going to kill me?” John asks quietly. His hands are as steady as ever. 

“No,” Steven responds tersely. 

John doesn’t allow his posture to change, just continues walking. “Then where are we going?”

“You have to get a number,” Steven says shortly.

John doesn’t ask what that means, he’s too tired.

They exit the hospital. John tries to ignore the people who are so much more malnourished than him. He wonders how many of them will be given to the scientists to test plagues on. He forces himself to not throw up.

They enter a building, and Steven pushes his way to the front of the line that is there, “Doctor Watson,” he tells the person behind the desk.

“Forearm,” she says, bored.

John offers his right arm to her. She swabs the skin with something and then pulls out a needle. She pokes into his arm, being delicate. He looks away, not liking the look of a needle in his arm.

“It’s not a Picasso,” Steven says irritably.

She scowls at him.

“Done,” she says after a couple of minutes.

John takes his arm back and Steven pulls him out of the building, back to the hospital.

“We’re going to get a lot of infections for these things,” John mutters.

“You won’t be treating them, Doc,” Steven says.

John knows it’s true, he’s never asked to treat the prisoners. Just the soldiers.

He examines his arm again. Numbers are displayed there in dark black ink. 

74375625

He sighs. Numbered like cattle, he thinks, and he can’t even bring himself to care. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make me update faster. ;) (I am shameless about about asking for comments, if you hadn't noticed yet.)


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments on the last chapter, it was very kind. :)

Sherlock storms up into 221B, recognizing the signs of Mycroft’s entrance immediately. He ignores his brother as he takes his coat off and hangs it up, snorting in anger. 

“Did you really think that would work?” Mycroft asks. He is sitting in John’s armchair casually, twirling his umbrella in his hand. It makes Sherlock livid to see him there, taking John’s space without a second thought.

“It would have worked if you hadn’t meddled,” Sherlock snarls at him.

Mycroft sighs, pressing his fingertips to his forehead. “You can be remarkably stupid at times,” he says.

Sherlock scowls and starts to say something but Mycroft cuts him off.

“Do not try to do something like that again, Sherlock.”

“I _have_ to get to France, Mycroft. You or the army isn’t going to stop me.” Sherlock settles down at his microscope, trying to ignore his older brother.

“You are not getting to France!” Mycroft spits, in an unusual display of temper. He visibly collects himself. “We are weeks away from winning the war, Sherlock, can you not wait until then?”

“No,” Sherlock says in a low voice, not looking up.

“He’s just a man,” Mycroft says in a demeaning tone.

“Get out,” Sherlock demands, his voice low and serious. His long fingers pick up a pen and make a note of something on a carefully placed pad of paper. He returns to his microscope, twiddling the knobs.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft sighs, getting out of John’s armchair and moving towards the kitchen.

“If you are not here to help me get to France then we have no further business.”

There’s a _ding,_ and Sherlock picks up his phone, missing the days when, if he ignored it long enough, John would do it for him. 

 

_I have a case -GL_

 

Sherlock flips it, watching it twirl in midair several times before catching it deftly and sliding it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Must be off,” he says, flashing Mycroft a completely fake smile while walking over and pulling his coat on again.

“He might be dead,” Mycroft says, standing in the middle of the room.

“He is not dead,” Sherlock growls at him so forcefully that Mycroft’s eyes widen. 

Sherlock takes a breath and then opens the door, pounding down the stairs, remembering exactly what it was like to have a second pair of footsteps following him. He can almost hear John call his name exasperatedly. 

Sherlock shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat, walking down the street quickly, wondering if anything would have been different if he hadn’t stayed away for three years after his fake suicide. If John would have stayed, rather than go fight in a war.

Mycroft was right, it pained Sherlock to admit it, even to himself, but John might be dead.

Sherlock firmly deletes that thought from his mind and continues walking towards a murder scene, that will, hopefully, fill his mind with other, more pleasant thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just really want to give Sherlock a hug, but he would look at me like I was crazy.


	18. Chapter 18

They are all put to work digging. Even John, who has never been pulled out of the hospital in the days that he’s been here.

Something's gotten the German’s scared, they’re preforming mass executions not twenty feet away. 

The sound of the gunshots ricochet through his ears. The muted thud of the bodies hitting the ground afterwards makes John wince. 

The wooden shaft of the shovel catches on his hands, making his palms hurt. He knows that he’ll be bleeding by the end of the day. 

Other prisoners start to drag the bodies over to them. John helps roll the still-warm bodies into the trench. He looks down at his fingers which are sticky with blood. He wipes them off on his pants and picks up the shovel again. 

He can see Preston down the line, and something inside of him stirs at that- the last of his unit. He wants to go over to him, to be reminded what life used to be like, but he doesn’t dare.

What would it be like, he wonders idly, to feel a bullet go through his brain, to be able to _stop_. It seems merciful.

He closes his eyes, and a flash of 221B comes up on the inside of his eyelids. An ache fills the inside of him.

He continues digging. He rolls more bodies on top of the other ones.

The Germans pour gasoline over the heaps of limbs in the trenches and light them up. 

The smell of smoke invades everything now. John tries to breath through his mouth, tries not to wonder who he is breathing in. 

A group of Germans come out near them, setting up music stands. Gold saxophones gleam in the sunlight and the silver of clarinets throws bright flashes into John’s eyes.

They start to play a marching tune, one that is used at football games, maybe it’s supposed to inspire them to work, John doesn’t know. What he does know is that he hopes they burn in hell for playing music like that while bodies are burning in the mass grave.

The man helping John drag a woman over to the fire suddenly stiffens, and keels over.

A guard is holstering his gun behind him, “Keep working,” he says.

John nods, grabbing the man’s ankles, trying to ignore the bullet wound in his bald head, trying not to notice that there’s a faint line where a wedding ring should be, trying not to see, trying not to observe.

He wants to go home.

Tears start to drip down his face silently. He doesn’t say anything, he keeps working.

After countless hours of work, they are herded back to the barracks. John isn’t taken to his specialized cell. Apparently they have no more need of his doctoring skills.

He is sandwiched in between to other men that are more bones than flesh and tries to sleep.

The men beside him wake him up three times, holding him down and telling him to wake up from nightmares.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Each time that happens he slides his hand into his pocket to grasp the recorder there. He still hasn’t lost it. It’s a miracle.

The battery is almost gone. 

He hasn’t pressed play for months, and he’s decided that he won’t press play again until his last moments.

He thinks that may be very soon now.


	19. Chapter 19

Dawn comes with the rustling of bodies, with the shakings of fear. Dawn is exactly what John wants to stay away. Dawn means more work, dawn means more death, possibly his last moments on this Earth. Dawn brings everything John doesn’t want. 

The doors to the barracks are thrown open, and everyone scrambles out of their makeshift beds, not wanting to get shot. 

They stand at attention at the end of the bunks. 

The soldiers order them out into the yard. John passes by the soldiers and his heart thumps extra hard. He feels adrenaline for the first time in a long while.

They walk where the soldiers tell them to, out into the yard, across the cobblestones, and straight out the gate. 

“The French are coming,” they say, “Go and find them.”

John is sure he is dreaming. They cannot be setting them free. Many of them cry in relief, John doesn’t. He just starts walking. If they’re letting him go then he’s getting as far away from here as possible. 

So he walks. People behind him sit down, for a rest or because they are dying, John can’t tell. He continues on. 

He finds a man on the side of the road, slumped over, “The French are coming,” John says to the man, he puts a hand on his shoulder. The man hardly moves. John realizes he’s dead.

“Well,” John says, half to himself, “maybe it’s a mercy.”

And he keeps on walking.

The French are rolling in on tanks, staring at the mass of prisoners with undisguised horror in their eyes. 

John can only imagine what they look like to them.

“Help us,” a woman to his left says. “Please.”

A couple of soldiers get down, and help her onto a truck that is following behind the tank.

“Come on,” one of them says, a boy, maybe nineteen. A boy in a soldier’s uniform. “Up you get.” He turns to help John onto the truck, but John shakes his head, backing away.

“I can help,” he says, and his voice is so tiny. He clears his throat and straightens slightly. “I can help,” he repeats. “I’ve got the strength.”

The soldier looks at his hands, which are bleeding from the abuse of the day before and his torso, which is much skinnier than it once had been. 

“I’m a doctor,” John adds, knowing that this will help his case. “I can help some of the prisoners.”

“Alright,” the boy says wearily, realizing that John is not going to back down. “Up on the tank then."

John goes to climb up, but his hands slip with the pain and the blood.

The boy helps him up, and John stares at his knees.

He treats countless people that day. He saves a couple of lives, even. Somewhere deep he know that that is the Right Thing to Do. But it doesn’t have the resounding clearness it once did.

Everything just feels so dull, colorless. And John knows that he has lost something in the war that they have just won.

 *   *   *

Sherlock barges into the room, his scarf flying.

Mycroft folds his paper down, looking at his younger brother. “It’s been a while since you visited me at work,” he remarks, picking up a glass of scotch that rests on the table next to him.

“Let me go,” Sherlock demands. His eyes are crazed.

Mycroft sighs.

“The war is over now, let me go,” he repeats. “You have no reason to deny me of this.”

“Don’t be surprised if you don’t find him,” Mycroft says, picking his paper up again. “Anthea has your ticket to get across the channel.”

Sherlock doesn’t even remark on the fact that Mycroft has had this planned, he just sweeps out of the room.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this earlier in the day than I normally do, because Supernatural is coming on tonight, and I'll forget to post later. You wonderful people who have read this entire thing, you deserve this chapter.

Sherlock steps into the room like the pressure of his foot might trigger a mine. He’s holding his breath unconsciously. The nurses said it was bad. Said he overexerted himself. Said he collapsed treating a patient.

And doesn’t that sound exactly like the idiotic thing John would do.

John’s lying on his back, his eyes closed. An IV drip extends from his arm. Sherlock can see the tip of a number tattooed onto John’s arm and that makes him angry, that they would number him like an animal, that they wouldn’t see him for who he was, that they wouldn’t observe. 

He can see the forced labor in the blisters of his hands. He can see the malnourishment in his torso. He knows they used John’s doctoring skills from his socks, he realizes that they probably blackmailed him, even though he would have done it anyway, just to stop people from suffering, even the enemy.

Sherlock steps forward, needing to see more of John, needing to see his face. His eyes dart over his body, making sure all his limbs are there, reading the pains he’s suffered in every wrinkle under his eyes and in the stiffness of his sleep.

John is painful to look at, because he should have wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, left over from laughing too hard for too long, and instead he has folds of skin that scream at Sherlock.

_Tired._

_Nightmares._

_Crying._

_Pain._

John stirs in his sleep. His hand opens and closes at his side. Sherlock watches closely, relieved to see him move again.

Once he’s settled down again Sherlock looks at the nightstand. The voice recorder that sits there makes a lump form in his throat.

He must have kept it the entire time.

Sherlock reaches out, plucking it from the wooden surface and flipping it into his hand. He presses play.

Soft violin music fills the air. It’s the song Sherlock always plays when John is having a nightmare. 

John’s eyes fly open. “No,” he gasps. “The batteries.” He reaches for the recorder, his eyes wide and wild, his hands open and remarkably child-like as he takes the recorder from him and stops the music. “The batteries are almost gone,” he mutters, holding the recorder next to him stomach.

“I can get more,” Sherlock offers. His hand is trembling. He clenches it into a fist. 

John looks up at him, as if remembering that someone else is there. His eyes are blank.

_He doesn’t remember me._

John blinks, and his eyes refocus. 

“Sherlock,” he breathes. The hands clutching at the voice recorder shake before he clasps them tightly. A wave of emotion rushes over his face and then he composes himself. 

 _Sentiment,_ Sherlock thinks as emotion wells up inside of him. _Inconvenient_. But it’s a half hearted attempt at indifference, and he knows it.

“Am I dead?” John asks. His voice is calm, his muscles are steady.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock scoffs. “Of course you’re not dead.”

“But you’re here.”

“I’m not dead either, John.” Sherlock sits down in the chair next to his bed and slouches, letting his coat obscure half of his face.

John holds out a hand, his finger wiggling in an invitation.

“What?” Sherlock snaps.

“Pulse,” John replies, and Sherlock sighs, lying his wrist in his hand. John’s finger fumble slightly as he searches for the telltale thump of Sherlock’s heart. 

Sherlock raises his eyebrows. John has never had any trouble finding his pulse before.

John cocks his head to the side, feeling the pulse of blood underneath his fingers before letting go of his wrist.

“Do people have pulses in heaven?” John asks, a line appearing between his eyebrows.

So, John thought Sherlock would be included in his heaven. Interesting.

“I wouldn’t know,” Sherlock answers. “I’ve never been.”

John’s eyes lock onto him again. “How did you even find me?” he asks, his voice weary. His eye are already sliding shut slightly.

Sherlock raises his eyebrows at that.

The corner of John’s mouth lifts, just slightly. A shadow of his old smirk. “Right,” he says, “genius.”

“Go to sleep, John,” Sherlock says.

“Don’t make me go back,” John mutters, his head rolling on the pillow to face Sherlock. “I don’t want to go back,” he whispers.

“You’re not going back,” Sherlock answers, his voice surprisingly soft. “I’m going to take you home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's not over, we're going to go back to London and see John's PTSD and how he adjusts and how Sherlock reacts to all of it. There's going to be some angst and some fluff. And honestly, I've got a lot more fluff than angst planned.


	21. Chapter 21

The cab pulls up out front of 221 Baker Street, and John gets out of the cab slowly. He had spent the boat ride back to England quiet, staring out at the waves. Sherlock had done the same, deducing the passengers around them to make his brain think about something other than the man standing beside him.

Sherlock grabs the bags out of the boot and walks up to the door. 

John knocks, and Mrs. Hudson comes out, wearing a purple shirt and a black skirt. “John,” she says warmly and puts her arms out to hug him.

He leans down into it warmly, like nothing has changed in these past years. “Mrs. Hudson,” he returns, smiling warmly as they step into the building.

She fusses over them much longer than necessary, even tearing up at the thought of ‘her boys together again.’

Sherlock rolls his eyes at that and John sends him a stern glance. Sherlock turns before allowing the end of his mouth turn up at that. Just like old times.

When Mrs. Hudson leaves, John shutting the door behind her, the smile slips off of his face the way rain slips off steel.

Sherlock scowls.

John picks up his duffel bag and starts up the stairs, Sherlock can hear a trace of his limp in his footsteps.

Sherlock goes to the fridge to see how his latest experiments have been holding up.

He’s inspecting a liver when John comes back down stairs. Neither of them say anything. 

Mycroft appears at some point in the day. Sherlock tries to ignore him, but it doesn’t work very well.

As soon as his older brother walks in John drifts into the kitchen, on the pretense of making tea. He fumbles with the pot almost immediately, so that it drops into the sink with a clatter.

He ducks his head and picks the pot up again, filling it with water. 

“Welcome back, John,” Mycroft says, leaning on his umbrella as he stands in the doorway.

“Thank you,” John answers in a quiet voice. He leans against the counter with his arms crossed.

Sherlock spares a glance for him and immediately registers that he’s leaning away from Mycroft slightly, casting him side glances. Evaluating him.

“Yes, thank you for dropping by,” Sherlock says standing up and ushering his brother out of the flat. “I’d say it was good to see you, but you can you can always tell when I’m lying.”

Mycroft frowns at him, but leaves when Sherlock all but pushes him out the door. 

Sherlock comes waltzing back into the kitchen, and settles down behind his microscope again.

John looks lost for a moment, and then remembers where the cups are, and finds two that aren’t too dirty.

He pours the steaming liquid into two cups and then hands one to Sherlock. 

“John,” Sherlock says quietly.

“Yes?” John asks, pausing from where he was going back to his armchair.

“It’s just water,” Sherlock points out, staring at the steam that’s curling into the air.

“Oh, yes,” John stares down at his own cup. “Of course,” he mutters and comes back to the kitchen, picking up Sherlock’s cup and busying himself at the counter again.

Sherlock goes back to his liver, with an unsettled feeling at the pit of his stomach.


	22. Chapter 22

“Come along John!” Sherlock shouts up the stairs.

John turns over in bed, looking at the clock. He groans and slips out of bed, pulling on trousers and a shirt with a coat. He ambles down the stairs.

“Sherlock, it’s three in the morning,” he complains. He hadn’t been sleeping, but still.

Sherlock’s eyes light up when he sees him, taking in the look of him. “Crime scene, John!” he says excitedly, clapping his hands together. “No time to waste!”

And he bounds out the door and down the steps. John follows, a smile playing on his lips for the first time in a long while. He follows him down the steps.

A couple minutes later he’s thinking that this wasn’t a good idea.

This wasn’t a good idea at all.

They approach the crime scene together at first, and then Sherlock is off in a whirl, dancing down the dark alley way that’s lit by the Yard’s lights. John follows afterwards, ducking under the yellow crime scene tape and nodding to Donovan. God, he hopes he doesn’t have to speak to her tonight.

“Welcome back,” she says, making John’s hopes crack and fall to pieces.

“Thank you,” he manages to say back, and he’s sure that his voice is hollow, that he looks half dead to her. He doesn’t even look her in the eyes.

“John,” Lestrade’s voice comes towards him. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re back. Sherlock was going mad without you.”

The corner of John’s mouth twitches up.

“Was he?” he croaks out.

Honestly, he’s not used to talking to anyone yet. The only person who has managed to get more than a sentence out of him has been Sherlock.

John follows Lestrade towards Sherlock, who is crouched on the ground, examining something.

“John, come here,” Sherlock waves him forward. “I need your opinion,” the glee in his voice is unmistakable.

John shakes his head at his enthusiasm.

He walks forward to find a severed arm lying on the ground. It had been cut off just below the elbow.

He crouches down next to Sherlock, deftly pushing back memories of the war. He’s fine. He can do this.

“Severed post-mortem,” John says as steadily as he can. Sherlock gives him a funny look, so he must not have been doing too good of a job. “And obviously it wasn’t cut here, no blood around. It was drained of blood and frozen, so who knows how long ago the victim was killed.” 

He says it all in an undertone to Sherlock, keeping his eyes down and not looking at Lestrade or any of the other policemen there.

Sherlock nods, taking out his magnifying glass and examining the fingers.

John stands up abruptly. “Need a minute,” he mutters to his flatmate and barges past the bewildered policemen and ducks under the cation tape again.

He leans against the wall, the brick digging into his back in a way that was weirdly comforting. He could focus on that, instead of his memories.

God, though, he remembered his mates being blown up, and the most they could find was a tooth. Sometimes the most remnants they could find was in other people’s skin. John had had a buddy who was stabbed in the arm by a pen the victim was holding.

John takes a deep breath. No point in thinking it over. No point. No point.

Except who was going to remember them if he wasn’t?

Sherlock comes around the corner. He leans against the wall, facing John. “Are you alright?” he asks in a low voice.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” John answers. He pushes off the wall, and straightens his shoulders. “Aren’t going you going to tell them what you deduced?”

“In a minute,” Sherlock’s face is unreadable. He stands up straighter, pushing his hands into his coat pockets. “You don’t have to come back,” he offers.

John shakes his head. “I’d like to see you in action again,” he says.

Sherlock looks him up and down, nods once, and whirls, stalking back to the crime scene.

He starts talking almost immediately as he sees Lestrade. “University student, had a penchant for writing notes by hand rather than typing them. You can tell because of the callus on the middle finger. Played guitar, you can tell because her nails are short and she has callus on the tips of her fingers. Used to wear a ring, if I had to guess, I would say it was a ring from a significant other, as it was on the fourth finger. Woman, obviously, and about nineteen years old, you can tell from the nail polish.”

Sherlock nods to the police officers and then turns, and walks away.

John is grinning as he follows him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, things are getting better.


	23. Chapter 23

Sherlock pauses in between the kitchen and the living room. John is sitting reading a book in his armchair and looks up.

“What?”

“There’s a case we could take in Sussex,” Sherlock offers.

John blinks slowly and reaches for a bookmark. 

Sherlock hopes he recognizes this for what it is, an excuse to get out of London, to see the sea. A vacation. 

“Alright,” John says.

Sherlock’s face brightens in relief and he claps his hands together. “We leave in an hour,” he says.

“Wha- an hour?” John repeats, and stands up, patting his pockets like they will reveal a packed duffel bag. “Blimey, Sherlock,” John mutters.

But he says it with a half smile on his face, so Sherlock knows he’s forgiven.

They do end up leaving in an hour, even though Sherlock doesn’t get up from the couch to pack his own bag. John does it grumbling, well, he tosses clothes onto Sherlock’s inert form until Sherlock stuffs them all into a bag and walks out the door.

They get there just as the train is pulling up, and Sherlock leads them to two empty seats where they sit down next to each other.

They bicker quietly and the old lady across from them asks them how long they’ve known each other.

“Seven years,” John says with a sigh.

She’s really asking how long they have been dating, but John doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe he just doesn’t really care about that sort of thing anymore.

There’s only one bed at the hotel, and John grumbles something about it being Baskerville all over again.

Sherlock doesn’t comment, but he does crawl into bed that night, something that he didn’t do all those years ago.

John doesn’t comment on it. Sherlock actually sleeps peacefully until John starts screaming.

Sherlock rolls over, grabs his wrists and holds them down. His fingers are inadvertently pressing against the John’s pulse. 

He whispers his name in time with the beats.

“JohnJohnJohnJohn,” Sherlock says until he wakes up.

“Sherlock?” John eventually returns.

Sherlock lets go of his wrists, “You’re in Sussex,” he reminds him. “We’re on a case.”

John takes in gasps of air, and sits up.

His sleeve has ridden up, exposing the black numbers that are on his arm.

Sherlock peers closer, taking John’s arm in his hands and examining the numbers from an inch away.

John watches with a half amused smile on his face.

74375625

Sherlock realizes the significance immediately and smirks. “The numbers were assigned to you?” he asks.

John nods. “We couldn’t exactly pick them,” he almost snaps.

“Fascinating,” Sherlock mutters, a full grin unfurling on his face. He’s never been one to believe in coincidence, but this, this is _amazing._

“What?” John asks.

“Nothing,” Sherlock responds, folding his sleeve down again and letting go. 

John frowns at him, but doesn’t say anything. He settles back down to sleep again.

Sherlock doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep again, not now.

“Sherlock,” John mutters. “Lay down.”

“Why?”

“Because in that position it’s too easy for you to kill me, I won’t be able to go to sleep.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, and lays back down. With the steady breath of John by his side he manages to get back to sleep in an hour. 

Fascinating.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I haven't updated lately, I've been distracted by an unholy amount of midterms and my Avengers fic. But I am back! So I hope you enjoyed this chapter. :)
> 
> Also, the fascinating thing about the numbers on John's arm that the numbers correspond with a phone keyboard and spell out Sherlock. In case you were wondering. John has no idea of course.


	24. Chapter 24

The case takes about three hours to solve tops, and John knows immediately that under any other circumstances Sherlock wouldn’t have even travelled out here. But he wanted John to have a vacation.

It puts a half smile on his face.

When they get back to the hotel John’s phone rings. He answers it, and walks over to a corner of the lobby to answer it.

His shoulders hunch minutely and he is clutching his phone too tight. It’s bad news. Sherlock doesn’t move over to him when he hangs up and stares at the wall.

John’s fist clench and he walks to their room without saying a word. Sherlock gets up and follows at a safe distance.

“John?” Sherlock says cautiously.

John doesn’t respond, just unlocks the door and then goes to sit on the bed while holding his head in his hands. 

Sherlock doesn’t say anything.

“Preston, the only other survivor of my unit shot himself today,” John says quietly. He studies his finger intently. “He left a note for me apparently. It just said, ‘Tell John I’m sorry.’” His voice cracks.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock says after a moment of thinking. That’s what he’s supposed to say here right?

“What was it all for?” John says quietly. “What was the point of all the murder, all the pain, all the worry if it doesn’t stop?” He stands up and takes a step towards Sherlock. “I watched my friends get blown to pieces in the name of their country, and now all they have is their names on a wall somewhere, and families mourning their loss. The only thing they have is pain to remember him by. One man was standing so close to a bomb that the biggest part of him we could find was a finger, and he had no family. He has no one left to remember him but me.”

John’s face crumples, his lips pressing together too tight and eyes crinkling at the edges. 

Sherlock hurries forward and catches John as he sways on the spot. 

“I’ve got you,” he says, guiding John back against the bed, lowering him to sit just as he begins to cry in earnest. 

“I thought it was over,” John says miserably. “Why isn’t it over?”

Sherlock just grips him tighter.

Eventually John pushes away to crawl underneath the blankets and try to sleep. Sherlock lays down next to him, and decides to get an hour of sleep.

He wakes up to John straddling him, his eyes unfocused and his hards around Sherlock’s throat.

Sherlock’s heart is already hammering. “John,” he squeaks, but he doesn’t hear him, doesn’t wake up from the nightmare he’s having.

“I’m not going back,” John hisses. “You can’t take me back.”

Sherlock tries to pry John’s hands off his neck, but to no avail.

He punches John in the jaw instead. He reels back, and blinks several times, coming to his senses.

His hands relax from Sherlock’s throat automatically. 

“Oh God,” he says. “Oh God, Sherlock.”

Sherlock gasps in air, filling his lungs.

John gets off his flatmate, and buries his face in his hands, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he repeats over and over again.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock says irritably. It’s half ruined because he can’t speak at full volume.

“I almost strangled you!” John half shouts.

“But you didn’t.”

“Sherlock-”

“John.”

“I should move out.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Well, you didn’t.”

“But I could.”

“It would be ... worse if you moved out.”

John stares at him. “Okay,” he says faintly. “I won’t move out.”

“Good,” Sherlock says briskly.

They stare at each other for a moment longer.

“Go back to sleep, John.”

He nods once, jerkily and then lays back down, facing away. Sherlock leans against the headboard, fingering his throat, and breathing deeply.


	25. Chapter 25

John pads down the stairs to find Sherlock slumped on the couch. “Morning,” he says.

Sherlock grunts in response. He’s dressed in his blue dressing gown that’s wrapped around his body and turns so that his nose is pressed into the cushions. 

John straightens up from the fridge. “We’re out of milk,” he says. “I’ll have to go to Tesco.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

Sherlock looks up from where he’s sitting and then stands up in a graceful movement. “I’ll go with you.” 

*   *   * 

John still can’t believe that Sherlock decided to go with him to the supermarket, but he’s not complaining. Yet. They walk down the aisle picking up the milk as they go, Sherlock walking behind John, eyeing the other customers with a discerning eye. Honestly, John’s just glad that he deigned to put on clothes for this outing. Sherlock stares at a woman with a purple coat for longer than he usually does. 

Sherlock picks up three candles and puts them in the cart, and then stalks off, coat whirling away behind him. He comes back a couple minutes later with a large bag of flour. 

“No,” John says firmly. 

Sherlock scowls at him. 

“No,” John repeats. “You are not blowing our flat up with flour, Sherlock.” 

“It’s for a case,” Sherlock tries. “We don’t have any cases right now, which,” John holds up a finger as he turns down another aisle, “is why you have been so annoyed for the last couple of days. So, I repeat, No. Flour. I’m not going to die that way.”

“Fine,” Sherlock huffs and then walks away. 

The corner of John’s mouth tugs upwards as he picks up some crackers. 

“Why are you smiling?” Sherlock demands. 

“What? I’m not,” John says. 

“You were,” Sherlock insists. “

I wasn’t,” John says, dropping a box of cereal in the cart. 

They’re standing in the checkout line and Sherlock is still staring at the woman in the purple coat. “Go on,” John says eventually. “Tell me.” 

“She’s fascinating,” Sherlock says. “She’s carrying on three separate affairs, John. And none of her conquests no about each other. She must be a genius.” He says it flatly. 

“You don’t sound too impressed,” John comments. 

“Well, I could do it, if I had the inclination.” he adds the last part swiftly and hands over his credit card to John in a swift movement. 

“Of course,” John says. Sherlock narrows his eyes at him. His phone rings in his pocket and Sherlock reaches for it. 

“Hello? ... Yes, yes, make it quick. Sounds tolerable. Yes, I suppose we’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Case?” John looks up at him. Sherlock nods, trying to keep a straight face, and then breaking out into a smile that wrinkles the skin around his mouth. “Three murders in the past week, no evidence.” 

The cashier looks up at them with a horrified expression. 

Sherlock puts his phone back in his pocket and jumps slightly in place. 

“We have to take the groceries back first,” John says. 

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he sighs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so like total fluff right here, but whatever, they're doing okay. The angst receded for a chapter. I'm sorry for not updating for so long. I'm a terrible person.


	26. Chapter 26

“Doesn’t make sense,” Sherlock mutters.

“Sorry?” John asks. He pauses on his way to the kitchen.

Sherlock looks up. “Oh, you’re here,” he says. Most of the time he still expects a deafening silence when he speaks, expecting John to still be at war. (He’ll never admit how glad he is that John is _not_ at war anymore.)

“Yes,” John answers, putting the kettle on.

(How much tea is it actually possible to consume? John defies the logics of the human body.) 

“I said it doesn’t make sense.” Sherlock jumps out of the chair, happy to have an audience for this part. “The victim didn’t own a cat.”

“Why does she need to own a cat?” John asks.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Pay attention. She has cat hairs on her skirt, probably from sitting on a sofa that the cat also frequented.”

“Why is that such a big deal?” John asks, folding his arms and leaning against the counter.

“None of her close friends or family owned a cat,” Sherlock says. _Think._ “An acquaintance, a lover?” He snaps his fingers impatiently. “We need to go to her flat.”

“I can’t,” John says, standing up straight. “Sorry, but I can’t, I have an interview.”

“An interview?” Sherlock pauses in the middle of putting on his coat and looks down at John. “For the clinic again?”

John nods.

“Are you really going back to work at that dreadful place again, really, John, you deserve a much more exciting job than that.”

“Like running around London with you?” John asks, half-smiling.

Sherlock frowns, shrugging one shoulder. “Fine, I’ll... go by myself then.” Sherlock says.

“Right,” John answers. “Good.”

He takes the pot off of the stove as it begins to whistle.

Sherlock hovers in the doorway.

John sighs, putting the kettle down on the stove with a defeated air. “I’ll call and see if we can reschedule, will that do?”

“Excellent!” Sherlock exclaims, and plucks John’s coat off of the rack and holds it out for him. “Let’s be off then,” he says, rattling down the stairs.


	27. Chapter 27

John walks up the stairs, shrugging his coat off. He hangs it on the coat rack that’s near the door, ignores Sherlock, who is pacing the room and collapses on the couch, face first.

“Had your interview then?” Sherlock asks, and oh, John can just hear the smirk in his voice.

He thinks it would be nice to throttle Sherlock sometimes, maybe smother him in one of the rare times that he’s sleeping. 

John turns his face towards Sherlock. “How’s the case going?”

Sherlock flaps his hands. “Finished it an hour ago, really disappointing when you get down to it.”

“Did you already tell Lestrade?” John asks wearily.

“Of course.”

John sighs, staring at his sideways view of Sherlock. “Go on then,” he says. “Tell me everything.”

Sherlock claps his hands together excitedly and starts rambling on at a thousand miles a minute. “Well, it was actually quite obvious, when you just looked around her flat. She frequented a therapist judging by the range of pills she kept in her bedside cabinet and the therapist obviously worked from home, and owned a cat.” He presents this piece of information like it’s a huge piece of the puzzle.

“So it was the therapist then?” John asks wearily. Really, sleep sounds like the best option right now.

“Of course not, it was one of her patients.”

“What?”

“One of her patients. It was clear that the therapist was the one thing that all three victims had in common, but it was clearly not the therapist who killed them.”

“How do you figure that?” John asks, peeking up at Sherlock.

“Well, she could have killed them any number of ways, with pills, overdoses, a syringe of drugs. No, these murders were bloody, and passionate.”

John thinks it’s disturbing how passionate Sherlock gets about murder.

“So, not the therapist then,” Sherlock continues. “But rather one of the therapists patients, specifically the one that fancied himself in love with her. Obvious from the cards on her desk and the flowers on her little table.”

Sherlock claps his hands together.

“Brilliant,” John says dully.

Sherlock frowns down at him. “You’re upset,” he says.

“Just tired,” John says, yawning. “Do you even get tired? Sometimes I think you never sleep.”

“I sleep,” Sherlock says, somewhat offended.

“Mmm,” John answers. He pulls his hand out from underneath his stomach and wiggles to get more comfortable. His eyes slide shut.

“Are you going to take it?” Sherlock asks.

“The job?”

Sherlock makes an affirming noise.

“Probably, gives me something to do when I’m not running after you.” John half smiles as he says the last part.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything, but instead takes a couple steps and picks something up. 

John waits for an explosion or maybe electrodes to be attached to his forehead to monitor his sleeping patterns, or something that is distinctly Sherlockian. Instead he gets something that is more Sherlock than all of those combined.

Violin music floats across the room, the notes curling up around John and serving as a comforter. It’s one of Sherlock’s own pieces, written a couple years ago, on a quiet night in the flat. A serial murderer had just been put behind bars, and John had sat in his armchair with a cup of tea and a book. Sherlock stood framed by the window, where he almost always stood while playing and composed.

The song always reminds John of the complete peace of that night. He hums as he curls up on his side. 

As he falls asleep he can feel the weight of Sherlock’s gaze on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can tell, I've felt like writing fluff lately. Let's hope that lasts for a while.


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